Travis Walton

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Rockets and missiles

One theory is that the group were victims of the test firing of a missile or rocket, which had either passed very close to them or landed and exploded not far away. This theory is tied in with the theory regarding `lights' or 'light orbs' in the night skies around the area (see below).
After the Second World War great effort was put into research and production of all types of missiles, with the emphasis on long-range missiles tipped with nuclear warheads, which become known as ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles). Using captured German scientists and a substantial amount of captured German V2 technology, a large area in the Astrakhan region near to Volgograd at Kapustin Yar was established to develop, research and launch new missiles. In 1955 another large site was also established at Baikonur in Kazakhstan (referred to by the Americans as Tyuratam) to test ICBMs and also carry out associated space research.
In 1959 the later Space Cosmodrome at Plesetsk in the Archangelsk Oblast (region) had only recently been established as a military base (with the Russian code name Angara) for the R-7 Semyorka ICBM. There were several rough groups of rockets and missiles used by the Soviet military in 1959, including strategic missiles of various ranges, air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles, surface-to-air missiles; naval missiles and army rockets (including tactical anti-tank weapons). For the purposes of any relevance to the Dyatlov mystery, most of these can be discounted.
Naval missiles were only just being developed. These were tested at sea (initially the Black Sea), although examples were fired from sea to ranges on land, but the northern Urals contained no ranges for these sea-launched missiles. The first anti-ship missile, P-15 Termit (NATO codenamed SS-N-2 Styx), only had a range of 24 miles (40km). Similarly air-to-air missiles were in a fairly early stage of development. The area was regularly overflown by the MiG-17 Frescos and Yak-25M Flashlight-As of 763 IAP at Yugorsk Sovetsky (see Air force, above); in 1959, however, these aircraft had 37mm cannon fitted as their standard offensive armament.
The use of army rockets (including anti-tank missiles) would have been possible. However, it was not an area known for the use of these types of weapons by the army and neither was it used for army exercises in this period.
This leaves two main possibilities, which are regularly suggested in connection with the Dyatlov incident: surface-to-air missiles and ICBMs.

Surface-to-air missiles

The S-75 Dvina system (NATO codename SA-2 Guideline) was the missile that brought down the U-2 spy aircraft flown by Gary Powers near Sverdlovsk on 1 May 1960. The S-75 was deployed from 1957 onwards. This highly successful anti-aircraft missile was deployed in batteries, which although were mobile in that everything could be disassembled in one place and reassembled in another place fairly quickly, they were complex systems that worked in conjunction with radar and thus would be better described as located on semi-static sites. Mention has been made on some websites that a `Dvina missile' may have been responsible for what happened to the Dyatlov group, but it is extremely unlikely: by early 1959 the testing phase of the initial missile type was over and, in any event, testing was first carried out near to the plants where they were made, notably at the Rzhevka site near the Leningrad (now St Petersburg) production plant. Final testing of these missiles was carried out at Kapustin Yar in Kazakhstan. When the S-75 was deployed, the batteries were located close to possible targets that could be attacked from the air, i.e. cities, manufacturing plants, military installations. They were also placed along the possible routes that it was expected an air attack might come from — either the United States or other NATO forces in the West. There were numerous batteries in the Sverdlovsk region as there were many targets of value there. However, the main point about these missiles is that the first models only had a range of 13 to 14 miles (22 to 24km). For the Dyatlov group to have been close to one of these falling to the ground with its explosive warhead, they would have had to have been within range of a launch site. There is no evidence of such a launch site at the time in the area. As testing was complete on the missiles by 1959, there was no requirement to take them to such an awkward location and test them and, added to which, given their range of only 13 to 14 miles (22 to 24km), there was nothing there for them to protect. It is possible that the place where the Dyatlov group were found at Kholat Syakhl could have fallen under the route of a possible air attack by US bomber aircraft coming in over the Polar icecap, but for an 5-75 site to be established it would have required considerable logistics to set it up in such an awkward location and it would have been virtually impossible to conceal its presence from people in the area.

ICBMs

The only ICBM in use by the Soviet Union in 1959 was the R-7 Sernyorka, which was only becoming operational in 1958-59 with an estimated ten operational examples. Test firings of this ICBM began in August 1.957 and up to 1.959 there were approximately twenty test firings. Without exception, all of them were fired from the rangehead at Baikonur and landed 3,500 miles away in the impact area in the Kamchatka peninsula, i.e. in a completely different eastward direction to the location of the Dyatlov group. There were some failures of these test launches but none of them went anywhere near the Urals. There is, however, one unsubstantiated reference to the launch of an R-7 from the Angara military base at Plesetsk on 9 February 1959.7 This is highly relevant, but as it was an operational military matter (i.e. the launch of an ICBM from a military site), checking its veracity is another matter. The official acceptance of the R-7 into military service was announced in a decree on 20 January 1960 but several examples were operational before then. The later (from 1960) military derivative of the R-7, the R-7A, was given the NATO codename SS-6 Sapwood.
The theory that a test firing from Baikonur of a ballistic missile that went astray was partially laid to rest by an article about the Dyatlov group deaths in a local Ekaterinburg newspaper Oblastnaya Gazeta dated 30 January 1999. In an article entitled 'Already Forty Years' it was stated:

In the period under consideration (between 25 January to 5 February 1959) no launches of ballistic missiles or space rockets were made from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The north Urals is located many hundreds of kilometres away from missile lanes. We assert unambiguously that no falls of a rocket or its fragments is possible in the area in question.

At first sight, what is stated in this article appears to be borne out by examining the lists of launches that were made. The R-7 Semyorka with the nearest launch dates took place on 24 December 1958 (recorded as a failure) and 17 March 1959. No reference is made in the article to the launch of an R-7 in military service at Angara, Plesetsk on 9 February 1959
It is also worth considering the launch of intermediate range missiles from Kapustin Yar. Kholat Syakhl was just beyond the official range of these missiles. However, an R-SM was actually launched from the test site at Kapustin Yar on 2 February 1959. The R-5M was an intermediate range weapon with a maximum range of 1,200km (745 miles) and the Dyatlov group were beyond its range as they were 1,700km (1,060 miles) away to the north-east. The R-5M test launches had ranges of between 1,083km (672 miles) and 1,200km (745 miles) aimed towards a point near Priaralsk Karakum, 150 miles north-east of the Aral Sea. There appears to have been no launch of a 1,500km R-12 (NATO codename SS-4 Sandal) and the nearest date examples of this missile launch were 30 December 1958 and 30 March 1959.
Despite this launch of the R-5M on 2 February 1959, what is stated in the article extract above is true — that the northern Urals was hundreds of kilometres from missile test lanes and that nothing was launched from Baikonur between the relevant dates of the Dyatlov group trip, allowing for the unsubstantiated launch of the R-7 from Angara, Plesetsk on 9 February 1959.
There is mention in a few studies of the Dyatlov incident of rockets with sodium trails being observed in the northern Urals, with the launches having taken place in the Kola Peninsula with the impact area located in the Tyumen Oblast in the Arctic Urals. This had first been suggested in a letter to a Moscow newspaper by Alexsey Koskin, an engineer and tourist who had visited the pass many times. He said that the 'lights' which were observed were sodium trails from these rockets, which were testing satellites and were coming down in the Nadym test field hundreds of kilometres to the north-east of Kholat Syakhl. The suggestion is that one of these test launches came down in the Ivdel area. While this is possible, there is a lack of evidence to back it up in the form of what rockets were involved and exactly where they were being launched from.
Overall, the possibility that a rocket or missile had landed close by is unlikely, as there was no signs of the blast from an explosion or any debris that one would have expected to find if any size of rocket or missile had landed and exploded. Trips within the area in later years (in the Chistop test field) have found debris that appears to be military-type rockets, but after the tragedy nothing was seen or found.
The suggestion that a rocket or missile had landed close by or even some distance away still does not explain the behaviour of the group and why they were found so far from the tent in the circumstances they were found in. Assuming a tremendous explosion occurred within an area close to the tent, why were only three of the group subjected to such massive internal injuries? It can be understood that a loud explosion and flames may have caused them to exit the tent in the manner they did, but the rush to get so far away is incomprehensible, particularly as nothing was found near enough to the tent to make them do this.

(Tratto da "Mountain of the Dead: The Dyatlov Pass Incident"
Di Keith McCloskey)

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Many years after the incident, retired and residing
in Kazakhstan, Ivanov gave a long and very strange
interview to a local newspaper, The Way of Lenin,
a substantial portion of which is presented here:

We are now used to the fact that some
newspapers, in their search for
sensationalistic scandals, will publish
unverified and sometimes untrustworthy
information. I was interested in an article in
the newspaper The Way of Lenin. The
publication was about UFOs as they appear in
the American press. I was particularly
impressed by the trustworthiness of this
because, as it is fairly written, the authorities
sometimes suppress obvious facts about
UFOs. This is indeed true and I would like to
tell you about how [they do it].
Thirty years ago I dealt with this myself
while working as an official. But in my case
the circumstances were very tragic.
Everything I will tell you is backed up by
official records, which are now kept at the
State Archives of the Yekaterinburg region.
For that reason I will change neither the last
names nor the dates of the incident. In the
information I give, there will be no artistic
license; the fact is absolutely documented and
was published and presented to the public
thirty years later, under the initiative of the
editors of the newspaper Ural Worker.
By the end of January 1959, a group of
sports skiers went on an expedition aiming for
Mount Otorten, which is situated north of
Ivdel in the upper reaches of the River
Auspiya. All of the climbers died; everyone
was told that the hikers found themselves in an
extreme situation and froze to death. But it
was not true. The real causes of death were
hidden from people. Just a few people were
familiar with the real story. These were the
Secretary of the regional Communist Party,
Kirilienko; his Deputy Head, Yeshtorkin; the
Regional Prosecutor, Klinoff, and the author of
this article who was investigating the case.
Today none of the others are alive.
What I want to talk about are some
mysterious phenomena that time after time
occur on Planet Earth, which no one has been
able to explain so far. What caused the tourists
to flee the tent? There are no insignificant
things in an investigation.
Next to the tent there was a natural sign
that one man had left the tent to relieve
himself. He had gone out without footwear and
then the same footprint without footwear was
seen still without boots down in the valley.
There was every reason to guess this same
person had raised the alarm and had no time to
put on his footwear.
This means there was something scary
that not only alarmed him, but [also] made all
the others leave the tent urgently and seek
shelter lower down in the taiga. To find this
force, or at least to get closer to it, was the
aim of the investigation.
On 26 February 1959, at the edge of the
taiga we found the remains of a small fire, and
here we found Doroshenko’s and
Krivonischenko’s bodies in their underwear.
Then in the direction of the tent we found
Dyatlov’s body and two more – Slobodin and
Kolmogorova. I have to say, the last three
were the most physically whole and easily
identifiable. They had been crawling from the
fire to the tent for their clothes. It was
absolutely obvious judging by their body
positions.
On the last four bodies there was no
external bruising or contusions; thus, there
was a directed force, which selectively acted
towards some of them, whilst excluding the
others. There were some circumstances I want
to tell you about now.
When, in May, Maslennikov and I were
examining the scene we discovered that some
young fir trees on the edge of the forest had
traces of burning, but these traces had no
concentric shape or system; there was no
epicentre. These confirmed the direction of
this force, which was a kind of a ray of
warmth, or a very strong, but completely
unknown, form of energy, which acted
selectively. The snow was not melted. The
trees were not damaged. I got the impression
that after the tourists had walked, on their own
legs more than 500 m down the slope, some of
them were targeted.
Nowadays we talk a lot about the
1950s, trying to make someone responsible for
our past. It was a period of really strict
discipline, especially in the area of law
enforcement and officialdom. There were no
ogres like Beria [Stalin’s enforcer], but his
culture was everywhere so, along with the
prosecutor of the region, I reported our initial
data to the Secretary of the local Communist
Party, Kirilienko, and he gave me a very
distinct order: make all the work secret, and
not one word of information was to be
released.
In addition, Kirilienko ordered us to
bury the tourists in closed coffins and to tell
the relatives they had frozen to death. The
accident was reported to Khrushchev, and as
we know from one correspondent of this
newspaper who was part of the rescue team,
he ordered that there should be no reports until
the investigation was complete and all the
bodies had been found.
And when we had found all the bodies
and some details emerged which I described
above, Kirilienko decided not to inform
Khrushchev. The whole situation was dropped
at a high level and all of the relatives’
enquiries were ignored. That is how our
country was at the time, and it was not we
who created this culture.
In fact, whilst the investigation was still
open, the newspaper Tagil Worker carried a
very tiny note that a globe of fire – or a UFO,
as we now say – was detected on Mount
Otorten. This UFO was moving noiselessly in
the direction of the northern Ural Mountains.
The reporter of this piece asked: what could it
be? For this infringement, the editor of the
paper was punished, and I was advised not to
dig deeper.
The overseer of my investigation was
Yeshtokin, the Deputy Head of the local
Communist Party. At the time we all knew
little of UFOs and radiation. The ban on these
topics was [to prevent] the off-chance of even
a random decryption of material related to
rocket missile projects and nuclear
technology, the development of which was just
beginning at that time. The world was in the
period of the Cold War.
But I still had to somehow conduct an
investigation. I am a professional, and I had to
somehow find the answer. I decided to keep
investigating despite this ban, because the
other versions [of the incident] involving
attacks by people, animals and storms had
been excluded by the data to which I had
access, and it was clear to me how they died,
and in what order, and in which
circumstances. This was revealed by the
diligent examination of the bodies, clothes,
etc. Thus, it was only the sky, and what was in
the sky, that remained as an explanation.
There was an energy we did not know,
an energy that was beyond human strength. So,
along with scientists from the Ural Scientific
Academy, I made some serious examinations
of the clothes and certain organs of the dead
people to check whether there was radiation.
To compare these results, we also took the
clothes and organs of the people who had died
in a natural way or in road accidents.
The data we obtained indicated the
presence of radioactive ‘mud’ or dust that
could be rinsed by water. Before these bodies
were found, they had been intensely rinsed by
the water under the snow; therefore, at the
moment of their deaths, the concentration of
radioactive ‘mud’ was many, many times
higher.
As a prosecutor, who at the time had
already had experience of working on some
secret defence matters, I dismissed the
suggestion of nuclear weapons trials in this
area. I looked very closely at the reports of
fiery globes. I questioned many eyewitnesses
who saw this UFO in the sub-polar Urals. By
the way, I do not mean that these UFOs are
connected with aliens. A UFO is an
unidentified flying object, and that’s it. A lot
of data speaks of the fact that [the UFOs] can
be bursts of energy not understood by modern
science, but which affect life and the
environment.
Re-examining the case, I am now more
than ever convinced it was a UFO, as I
concluded back then.
On the basis of the data obtained, the
role of a UFO in this tragedy is absolutely
obvious. It was already written in [the
Russian] press that even myself, as a
prosecutor and criminalist, tried to stress that
the real cause of the death of people was an
Unidentified Flying Object, although I hid this
in my final conclusion, by using the words ‘an
impact of an overwhelming force’.
When asked if I have changed my
opinion over the past 30 years, I would say I
have changed only my view of the technical
aspects of the impact. If I previously believed
the globe exploded and showered unidentified
radioactive energy over the area, now I think
this energy from the globe was directed, and
aimed at just three people.
When I reported to Yeshtokin on all
these findings, like beaming globes,
radioactivity, etc., he gave me absolutely clear
orders: make everything secret, put all the
documents in a sealed package, bring it to the
security archives, and forget about it.
Needless to say, everything was done
exactly so.
To a modern reader, this could appear
strange: what was the big secret? But please
try to remember that, immediately before this
accident, there was a so-called radioactive
discharge in Kyshtym. We can talk about it
now, and read about it in newspapers, but
anyone who tried to discuss it then? No one
would dare. [This becomes clearer] when you
consider that, in the contamination zone in the
Kyshtym region, a massive number of people
knew the real situation. And those who knew
were silent.
Older generations will recall what kind
of times these were; it was only recently that
satellites were sent into space. Back then there
were some trials of nuclear and hydrogen
bombs, and many people made the connection
between UFOs [and] decontamination efforts.
But the data of our investigation
indicated that the case of the Dyatlov group
had nothing to do with any military trials.
Today, when everyone knows about the test
areas and the methods of testing nuclear
bombs, our version of the deaths of [these]
people has been even more confirmed. The
modern generation should not judge us too
harshly.
I am not trying to justify that I covered
up all of the material about the fireball, nor
that how so many people died was kept secret.
I asked the editor to publish my apologies to
the relatives of the dead for my hiding of the
truth from them. But four times no space could
be made! So I take my chance in getting it
published here, and I hereby apologise again
to the families of the dead, especially
Dubinina, Tibo, and Zolotariov. I am sorry. I
tried to do what I could, but at that time in this
country there was an overwhelming force.

(Tratto da "Don't Go There: The Mystery of Dyatlov Pass"
Di Svetlana Oss)

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